The Art of Summer Language

I often get the question: Why don’t you just study abroad instead of studying at Middlebury for a summer? The basic argument is that studying abroad gives you full immersion whereas Middlebury is just a fake, an imposed-immersion in the language for 6-9 weeks. What most people don’t understand is that Middlebury provides a language environment with the same immersion with less distraction. It’s pretty darn hard to deal with cultural shock AND language shock when you get dropped in a foreign country. The temptation is to go to an expat bar and chat up the American owner, forgetting to learn the language. But Middlebury is more like bootcamp — about recreating the ideal situations of language learning.

The other part of the Middlebury experience is learning with like-minds. And with like-minds, some of the best out-of-classroom experiences happen. Here’s a peek into some of the cool extracurricular arts that happen during the summer. Chinese school two years ago didn’t have any choirs or theater performances, so I guess I’ll just have to sit in jealousy taping these performances/rehearsals:

French School Choir Rehearsals:

Spanish School Choir Rehearsals:

French School Theater Part 1:

French School Theater Part 2: